


16. There’s nothing I can do anymore.

by KittenKin



Series: Drabble Prompt Fills [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:08:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22307692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittenKin/pseuds/KittenKin
Summary: Sherlock eventually responds to John's demand that he do something while there's still a chance.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Drabble Prompt Fills [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605655
Comments: 8
Kudos: 154





	16. There’s nothing I can do anymore.

John looks up from his paper and quirks an eyebrow, clearly expecting more details. Wishing the conversation to go as smoothly as possible, Sherlock decides to be magnanimous. After all, the interaction he’s referencing is now months old; it’s probably slipped John’s (ofttimes lamentably normal) mind entirely.

“You encouraged me to ‘do something while there’s still a chance’,“ he notes, and sees recognition flare in John’s eyes and the way the paper dips, downgraded sharply in priority. "You believe that my having a…having someone whose idealized vision of me I would wish to live up to would complete me as a human being.”

The paper crinkles as John shifts in his chair. Uneasy, perhaps regretting the suggestion now, or at least some facet of it. The old jealousy, or just the aggressive manner in which he’d attempted to prove he didn’t feel it? Getting ready, even, to prove it all over again that he’d like nothing more than to stand up for Sherlock as the detective leads Miss Adler to the altar?

“What do you mean,” John asks, “that there’s nothing you can do?”

Careful, cautious. Wondering if Irene’s gone and got herself into trouble again, and this time without Sherlock at hand to save her.

“There is someone, though it isn’t the Woman. Isn’t a woman at all, in point of fact,” Sherlock elaborates. Irritating how heteronormative John can be, even to the point of viewing those around him with tinted glasses; rose pink on one side and baby blue on the other. “But even if I could muster up the courage now, to ‘do something’, I believe the chance no longer exists, if it ever did.”

John frowns, working his lips a bit as he visibly attempts to formulate effective questions. Sherlock feeds him more crumbs out of a desire for as much clarity as is possible. The conversation will be torturous as it is; he has no wish to extend it by even one second of confused argument.

“He’s alive, but there’s too much history between us. And like many histories, it’s rife with shots fired and blood spilled. I can’t risk what little amity remains between us on a hope that’s only fed by the fact that he’s not dead.”

John mulls this over for a bit, taking in new data and from the flicks of his eyes, also reviewing memories. Sherlock lets him process, impatience tempered by anxiety.

“Well, um,” John eventually ventures. “Maybe if this bloke knew how you felt…”

“Please, John. Gratitude for unasked-for affection only breeds affection in Edwardian period dramas. At best we’ll continue as we are, only with more awkwardness peppered about. Oh joy. At worst…it’ll be a slow poison, and I’ll lose him entirely. It likely won’t take more than a few months.”

“I see your point, but…Sherlock, eventually it’ll end anyway, won’t it. Just…circumstances, or…or death. And then what’re you left with? Your history, and then all this time spent wishing and wanting. Not exactly happy memories to be left with.”

“A man of action and medicine,” Sherlock murmurs. “You think I ought to cut my losses and move on. Take my chances on the hope of better quality of life after cutting a piece of myself away.”

“Well, yeah, I suppose I do,” the doctor agrees. The surprise at having had his own thoughts formed for him more quickly than he could do so himself settles into impressed amusement, and the admission ends with a fleeting smile.

“What if you were collateral damage, John?”

“I…what? I don’t…“

“Just answer,” Sherlock sighs. “You don’t need to understand how it would happen; just that it would. What if the fallout of my attempt…my confession…is that _our_ friendship suffers as well?”

He can see the question still bouncing around in John’s head, demanding to be sussed out. Before it can lead to ridiculous theories about Lestrade or God forbid, Wilkes, Sherlock prods him again.

“Answer.”

“I…you shouldn’t let that stop you. This is about you. You deserve happiness. You deserve love. Even a slim chance is better than none, and it’s a damned sight better than regrets after they’re gone and you’ve not spoken, believe me. Just do it, Sherlock, I’m telling you.”

Well, and only a fool ignores their doctor.

“I love you.”

“Yes, just like that.”

“Oh for–” Sherlock almost bursts out into hysterical laughter. “John Hamish Watson, I, William Sherlock Scott Holmes, harbor romantic love and sexual desire for you, and have done for many years now.” He screws shut his eyes and tries to breath against the pain already blooming. John’s advice is shit so far. Well, he’ll most likely have to get a new physician anyway…

“It hurts,” Sherlock admits, now that he’s letting secrets out. “It hurts to love you, and it hurts not to have you. And on my physician’s recommendation I am telling you this so that we can move on. If we can move on.”

A deafening silence falls, and he can’t even suss out John’s breathing patterns over the pulse hammering desperately away in his head. Is this how John’s patients feel as they wait for the biopsy results, the diagnosis, the knife? Does it feel like all the potential years of gentle sorrow become concentrated into a few seconds of unbearable anxiety?

_I should be gentler with ~~our~~ my clients when I give them bad news, he decides._

He concentrates on breathing in, and breathing out, and keeping his hands still instead of tearing at the leather of his chair or even worse, his hair and skin and clothes and ribcage and that stupid beating heart–

John’s chair scrapes back an inch and the newspaper rustles and flutters toward the floor, and tears prickle at the backs of Sherlock’s eyelids. One drop falls down his cheek when he startles and blinks them open as John falls to his knees between Sherlock’s own. And he loses track of them entirely as John takes his face between his hands - faded gun calluses, the sureness of a battlefield medic even though the rest of him is trembling, oh, oh!, _John_ \- and kisses him; one desperate, gasping, salt-sweet kiss that lasts forever.


End file.
